Reading Between the Lines
by XxReddShadowxX
Summary: Izaya Orihara and Shizuo Heiwajima have hated each other for years, but what will it take for them to realize that hatred isn't the only emotion to cross their minds during their usual chases and brawls? Rated T for ShizuoXIzaya/fluff/mild language
1. Chapter 1

**I haven't been on this site for a while, sadly, but I thought I'd do something really quickly, even if it isn't homestuck. Perhaps Animazement gave me some inspiration, especially after hugging so many blonde bartenders wielding road-signs. So many Shizuos and Izayas... *swoon***

* * *

The sun was a bright, lovely shade of yellow, illuminating the gleaming blue sky and the manicured emerald grass. Nearly half of the population of Ikebukuro was there at the park that afternoon, basking in the hot sun and the cool breeze. Just wafting through the calm wind one could smell the soft scent of nature and the sense of easiness there was in the atmosphere.

It was truly a beautiful day; but Shizuo Heiwajima hated it.

"Why are we still here?" He grumbled impatiently, lighting a cigarette in his hands nonchalantly. Slowly inhaling the addicting smoke, he exhaled into the air in front of him. Tom sighed outwardly, turning to speak to the tall blonde sitting on the bench next to him. "Because there's no more people to collect from; this is your day off, Shizuo. You need to relax more anyways, it would be good for you to remain calm."

Sadly, that remark was true. It _would_ be better for Shizuo to remain calm. After all, he hated violence anyways, no matter how ironic it seemed with his poor temper and inhuman strength. If it were up to him, he would be a normal civilian with normal strength and a normal life where nobody was afraid of his unnatural abilities. However, his wish was never granted, thanks to one person who wasn't scared of him.

"_Shizu-chan~!_" A familiar voice rang out in the distance. The crowd began to fade out quickly as the ground began to feel like it was shaking. Tom sighed and closed his eyes, shaking his head back and forth as he fell to the ground. "Here we go again..." He mumbled, knowing that a certain fake-blonde ex-bartender couldn't hear him over the bench he just threw across the park.

"_IIIIZZZZAAAAYYYYAAAA!_" Shizuo screamed furiously up to the heavens, a vein visible in his forehead through his anger. With that being a usual battle-cry, the chase began, Shizuo Heiwajima dashing through the streets with the stealth of a bulldozer and a road-sign in hand after the quick, agile, and knife-wielding Izaya Orihara across all of Ikebukuro.

"I thought that I told you never to come here, you stupid flea!" Shizuo screamed.

"I thought that you were smart enough to know that you'll never catch me, moster~!" Izaya countered in a sing-song tone, his tongue sticking out at the attacker as he leaped through the air over him.

"Why you..." Shizuo muttered, trembling with loathe for the small man and crushing the stop sign he held in his hands. Izaya gave a cocky smirk to Shizuo and waved his beloved switchblade around after retrieving it from the pocket of his fur-trimmed jacket. Both of the men were panting slightly, sweating a bit from the heat of the sun, and the heat of the chase. Shizuo fumed as Izaya grinned maliciously.

"I'll _kill_ you, Izaya..." He hissed, receiving a small chuckle from his opponent. "Tch, tch, tch, my little monster, now what would be the fun of a game such as this with only one person?"

Izaya wandered dangerously close to the provoked assailant, so close as to where they were breathing the same air as one another. Beads of sweat slid down the taller one's head, shimmering in the sun like his amber eyes no longer underneath those long forgotten purple sunglasses. Izaya only smirked, giving the tempered opponent that omniscient face to let him know that he was several steps ahead of him.

"Admit it, Shizu-chan. Without me, you would be bored. So killing me would not only be bad for me, but more so for you. You would miss me Shizu-chan, wouldn't you? Would you miss me as much as I would miss you?"

Shizuo knew that Izaya expected him to say something around the lines of _'_yeah right, I despise every fiber of your being, flea', and he knew that it would make him think even more that he was ahead of him. So he did something that the flea never though he would do.

Dropping the sign and grinning to himself, Shizuo stared Izaya down, enjoying the subtle twitch of shock in those evil crimson eyes of his.

"I guess I would, Izaya."

And with that, the fortissimo of Ikebukuro just walked away from his mortal enemy, hands in his pockets and a burning cigarette in his mouth, and a landscape of flaming road signs and vending machines in his wake, as well as a confused Izaya behind him.

* * *

"No, I must've seen this coming... I know everything that's coming, and that's why..." Izaya Orihara trailed off mindlessly, spinning childishly in his favorite black office-chair. His office was currently empty, besides him, and he was absolutely fuming over what had happened only an hour ago.

Grinning maniacally and rising from his seat to look through the window, he put his hand to the glass.

"I know everything that is going to happen, and that is why I am a god to my little humans. My little humans in which I love so much..." He cackled loudly, albeit only for a moment before stopping to stare madly at the scene of the Ikebukuro streets below him before he ambled over to the couch across from his desk. He sat down, slamming a chess piece down in the middle of a game board, surrounding it by other assorted pieces of random board games. "And that is why... that is why they should all adore me too." He paused. "But this... this _monster!_" He spat.

He rose suddenly, knocking over some pieces of the board with his abrupt motion. He raised his hands to his head and gripped handfuls of jet-black hair, scarlet eyes wide in his current loss of sanity.

"No, I'm losing it..." He slowly let his hands down, in which were clad in a black v-neck long sleeve shirt after he'd discarded his signature jacket onto the couch. He knew that this was not him. Izaya Orihara was a calm, collected, and all-knowing information broker who was sly and sneaky and...

For once in his life: confused.

He thought about what Shizuo Heiwajima had said to him earlier that day, deciphering the meaning of each word, each tone, each look that had come out of the blond's mouth. He dissected the sentence, comprehending and analyzing what he'd heard_._

_I guess I would, Izaya..._

Was this sarcasm he had heard? _No, it was much too blatantly spoken..._

Was it sincere? _That would make no sense, because we both hate each other so much... Unless..._

"Unless perhaps..." The pale informant smirked evilly. "Oh my, Shizu-chan..." He whispered to himself as he sat behind his desk, placing his chin in one hand and fondling a white and black king chess piece from the board earlier. He set them down next to each other.

"Hatred and love are two human emotions, so close together yet so far apart, but could my little monster be capable of... perhaps he is..." Hesitating to speak for a moment, he allowed another thought to slip into his mind.

"But do I...?"

* * *

"I don't know why I said it, I told you this already, Shinra." Shizuo muttered to the underground doctor angrily. Shinra sighed.

"Well, in that case, maybe you are just experiencing some emotions that you haven't yet dealt with that are affiliated with Izaya." He suggested. "Perhaps you, and bear with my opinions for a moment, could possibly feel differently about Izaya than before." Shizuo grunted.

"What do you mean? I don't think it's possible for me to hate the damn idiot more than I do now..."

Shinra scratched the back of his head, and sighed. "Well, that's not what I meant." He explained. "You see, I think that after all of these years and the statement implying that you have unexplained feelings towards Izaya as well as this new hypothesis of his that you would miss him if you didn't have him to yourself might be hinted towards, well... Maybe love?"

The doctor barely finished his sentence as the ex-bartender whacked him hard in the back of the head.

"You're saying that I'm in _love_ with Izaya?" He hissed quietly.

"N-no!" Shinra protected, rubbing his head. "I'm saying that it's quite possible."

"Why you-!" Suddenly, Celty entered the room, and placed a hand on his shoulder, calming him down slightly.

[What's going on?] She typed on her PDA. Shizuo sighed angrily, explaining their conversation to the female Dullahan in detail.

[Well, maybe he's right.] She responded. "_What_!? Excuse me, do you even _know_ who we're talking about right now?" Shizuo asked her, shocked. She seemed to look down, sighing, but she didn't have the head to do so.

[Look, maybe Shinra is just explaining the inevitable. Even though you both "hate" each other, maybe you both love each other as well.]

"How would that even be possible?" Shizuo argued.

[You two know each other more than anyone in Ikebukuro and Shinjuku; it would only make sense.]

She typed in something else.

[Maybe by saying what you did, it was your subconscious talking and hinting towards how you really feel.]

Rubbing his temples silently, Shizuo thought about their reasoning, no matter how reluctant he was. Was it possible for him to love and hate his arch-nemesis at the same time? Maybe Izaya actually did mean what he said, and maybe Izaya felt something else besides hatred towards Shizuo.

"If it's possible to love and hate someone at the same time then... that sly flea... but still..." He paused.

"But could I possibly...?"

* * *

**Alright, so that's chapter one for you. I will hopefully continue this if I don't lose inspiration again, so tell me what you think and I will abide to my readers humbly if I do agree.**

**-XxReddShadowxX**


	2. Chapter 2

**Okay, so I was pretty happy with the responses to the story I got, so I guess I won't scrap it after all like I was planning to ^^"  
**

**Anyways, I'm just saying now that most of these chapters will be based on music, because music is something very important to me, something that I value dearly. However, the physical chapter will not include the lyrics, so THIS IS NOT A SONGFIC. Songfics have always confused me so much, so I won't point out the song until the very end at the bottom of the chapter for the people who may be interested. And one more thing, the characters are probably a bit OOC, but I'm trying.  
**

**DISCLAIMER:**** I do not own Durarara, nor any of the characters in it.**

* * *

That night, neither of the two slept. They lied in their beds, thinking, and not daring to doze off when there was so much to be thought about. In this certain predicament, Shizuo Heiwajima didn't dare to throw another violent tantrum over it, knowing that it may be what everyone expected of him. Izaya Orihara found this unnerving, not knowing everything that is to happen to him. That was what he hated about Shizuo.

He tossed and turned still as the clock struck midnight.

"My little unpredictable monster..." He whispered, to nobody in particular, grinning madly to himself. "My Shizu-chan..."

Little did he know, the town nearest Shinjuku in Ikebukuro, the blond he thought of was thinking of the brunet as well. Though their thoughts were not connected, they might as well have been.

"My little annoying flea..." Shizuo whispered to himself, closing his eyes. "My Izaya..."

Just as the moon rested high in the pitch-black Tokyo sky, the two drifted into a quiet, restless sleep, not knowing quite when their questions would be answered, and by who.

_Dream Sequence..._

_(Shizuo POV)_

_"Shizu-chan?" A voice called into the darkness towards me. My hands balled into fists, but I couldn't summon that anger that I used to. Slowly opening and closing my eyes, I looked around. I seemed to be standing, but I didn't know what I was standing on._

_"Shizu-chan!" The voice called again._

_"Izaya?" I quickly replied. Suddenly, the call began desperate._

_"SHIZU-CHAN, HELP ME!" Izaya cried. Not knowing where I was going exactly, I began to run straight where I'd heard the sound. That was when I saw him. Izaya seemed to be levitating in the air, screaming and banging his fists against an invisible wall. I sprinted forward and banged my hands on it hard. I heard him screaming, running out of oxygen, but instead of laughing like I should have been, I was crying and screaming._

_"SHIZU-CHAN!" He screeched again, coughing and trying hopelessly to breath through the non-existent air. Tears fell quickly down our faces as we called each others names. Suddenly, as I thought all was lost, we both screamed for each other, something we thought would never be said._

_"Please, I love you!" We yelled. All at once in one motion, our fists hit the same spot on the invisible wall at the same time, and we saw a white line shatter through it. Izaya fell into my arms, coughing and sobbing uncontrollably._

_"T-thank you Shizu-chan..." Izaya sputtered, burying his face in my chest. Without thinking, I wrapped my arms around his fragile body and embraced him, letting him cry into my shirt. I placed my chin on his head, wide-eyed and still in shock from what had happened. Inhaling his scent, he pulled back slightly, my arms still around him. He looked me in the eyes, his maroon eyes glittering with tears. His beautiful ivory skin glistened slightly against the black backdrop as his face was dusted with a pink tint. He was just so adorable, I couldn't help what I did._

_I kissed him._

_It wasn't needy or demanding, but it was loving and sentimental. With nobody to tell us no, and nobody to judge us on what we do, we embraced for a second time._

_"I thought I was going to lose you..." I whispered to him quietly, feeling him burying his head into the nape of my neck. Almost shaking from the tears, he didn't look at me._

_"I love you, Shizu-chan..." He almost inaudibly breathed out to me. I closed my eyes, enjoying the one peaceful loving moment we were having together._

_"I love you too, Izaya..."_

_The scene wavered, and suddenly, everything when completely dark and I couldn't feel a thing._

_Dream Sequence:_

_(Izaya POV)_

_Everything was dark, but I could only see my own self in the murky area. I stuck my hand out in front of me, feeling around. I touched a cold, invisible wall. Suddenly, I felt the air around me thicken as I was lifted slightly into the air. Oxygen was escaping me, and all I could think about was being saved. In one brief moment, I called out for help, even thought I didn't see anyone around me._

_"Shizu-chan?" I tested, coughing for air. There was a response, much to my surprise._

_"Izaya?" A voice called out for me. I was relieved, but I couldn't help but think to myself, why him? It began to get harder to breathe as I called out again, more desperate for the blond as I did so.  
_

_"Izaya!?" It called out again, more urgent than before. I banged my fists against the wall desperately. All of a sudden, I saw the ex-bartender in front of me, banging his hands on the glass. I could no longer breathe, and my lungs where burning. I was surprised I could speak. We called each others names until we both looked broken on the outside._

_"Please, I love you!" We both yelled. At that moment, the wall seemed to shatter in a brilliant white light as I collapsed into his strong arms, my head hitting his broad chest._

_"T-thank you Shizu-chan..." I muttered, not sure if he could hear me. I pulled back slightly, looking into his beautiful amber eyes as the nearly invincible man actually cried. My face began to feel hot, knowing that he was crying for me. Abruptly, without knowing what was going to happen next, he leaned forward and did something way more unpredictable than I would ever think._

_He kissed me._

_The kiss wasn't rough or anything of the sort, but soft. Softer than I thought possible from the giant man whom I'd accused of being a brute for all of these years._

_"I thought I was going to lose you..." He whispered to me as I dug my face into the nape of his neck, crying more than I thought I could. Sniffling slightly in what seemed like hours, I closed my eyes._

_"I love you, Shizu-chan..." I breathed out quietly, basking in the peaceful, loving moment I was having with my mortal enemy._

_"I love you too, Izaya..." He responded.  
_

_Then, as we both seemed to melt quietly into the moment, everything faded out, and I couldn't feel anything anymore._

* * *

Waking up with an odd feeling in their stomachs, the two woke for their daily lives, Shizuo going about as a debt collector in Ikebukuro and Izaya going about as an information broker in Shinjuku. Nevertheless, something was both bothering them, and it was something that nobody knew but each other.

"I'm telling you, it's not normal to dream something like that about your nemesis... much less that damn flea..." Shizuo muttered to the female Dullahan angrily, pacing about in the late night Toyko air. He'd finished his work for the day, and went to blow off some unwanted steam to Celty, who always seemed willing to listen to him rant. She nodded, her helmet shining under the street lights as she typed something into her PDA.

[This is probably just further proving me and Shinra's theory. We weren't trying to tease you, but just find out the truth.] She wrote to him.

"Yeah, but I would never do this." Shizuo argued.

[Would you?]

"What are you getting at?"

[I still think that you may actually be in love with Izaya, Shizuo. Stop denying the idea, because we don't know if it's true or false yet.]

The tall man sighed impatiently, lighting a cigarette and taking a long drag before exhaling again. As Celty began to look questioningly at him, his face seemed to soften behind his purple sunglasses.

"What if he doesn't love me back?" He whispered tenderly, which was out of character for him to do.

[There's only one way to find out, Shizuo. Talk to him.]

With that remark, Celty boarded her black motorcycle and soundlessly sped off into the city, going about her usual business. Shizuo thought quietly to himself, leaning against the railing of the road.

"Talk to him..." He mumbled thoughtfully.

* * *

"I just don't understand him sometimes..." Izaya muttered to his forced secretary, Namie. "It's like I can see everyone's cards, except for his..."

Namie Yagiri looked up from her seat on the couch with a bored expression on her face. "I don't care." She bluntly responded. Izaya furrowed his brow thoughtfully. "What to do, what to do..." He said. "If only I knew what move to make."

The woman sighed apathetically. "Look, maybe you could actually be in love with him. It's very possible."

Izaya tilted his head to the side, thinking. "Well, that's an extremely vapid statement, but I supposed I have no other viable choice but to consider it." Rising from his desk, Izaya paced around silently through the room. "But it seems that this almost, silent war... It is unbearably irritating how much I think that I may not be able to win it."

Namie crossed her legs, giving another look that screamed 'I don't care at all'.

"Well, you'd better believe it, because no matter what you think you know, it probably isn't true." She stated bluntly. "But if you're really going to be this stubborn about it, then you need to go talk to him."

Izaya thought for a moment about what she had told him and closed his eyes in thought.

"Talk to him..." He whispered to himself thoughtfully.

* * *

**Okay, that's it for this chapter I guess. It's kinda long, which surprises me a bit, but I guess that's cool for you guys in a way though. If you liked it, then thanks. You're pretty radical. If you don't like it, then why are you still reading it? Go flame someone else.  
**

**Even though I said that I'd use music as my inspiration, my other computer was being used and I couldn't put anything on, so this chapter was written by what I felt at the moment.**

**Thanks, and don't forget to give a review or PM if you have something to say!**

**-XxReddShadowxX**


	3. Chapter 3

**Ah, so you've returned my fellow acquaintances? In that case, I so very willingly welcome you to my humble abode. I've modestly awaited your arrival, haven't I now? Indeed... *evil grin***

**(I'VE ALWAYS WANTED TO WRITE THAT TO RANDOM PEOPLE)**

* * *

"I've always needed to say this to you, you know. I never thought it would ever come to this, but it did anyways, huh? You of all people. Still, if I don't say this now, I think I'm going to break right now. I never want our chase, our relationship, to get old. I want to be the one that you will always know, that you will always wait for...

"So, do you...?" The tall bleach-blond male stopped, running a hand through his hair and scowling at the man in front of him. Face burning, he threw a fist forward and-

_CRASH!_

The mirror in front of him shattered beneath his hand, pieces falling to the carpeted floor of his apartment in a disarray of jagged shards.

"Dammit..." He cursed. "I sound like an idiot."

Pacing thoughtfully, Shizuo shoved two hands in the back pockets of his bartender uniform and sighed. How could he even begin to know how to love, or even confess anything, to somebody he was afraid that he was going to punch as soon as he said hello? Maybe this was all just fake, just some freak accident that didn't matter and was just a phase. He closed his eyes in doubt, knowing that avoiding the brunet wouldn't even mean anything to taking the easy way out.

"Why am I even acting like this?" The ex-bartender thought aloud. "It's just a simple... a simple..."

That was it. That was the reason why he couldn't muster up any of his pure will to help him on instinct. It _wasn't_ simple. The concept wasn't simple in the least bit. He couldn't run on instinct or pure will to help him with this, so he would have to think a different way; Izaya's way. Devise a plan, use tactics, never run anything on sheer willpower, but on structure.

"Maybe the flea was onto something in the first place." He concluded, walking over to sit on an old couch.

Leaning onto a wooden coffee table, he rested his chin in his hands and sighed, shutting idle eyelids beneath purple-tinted shades. Opening his mind to new thoughts, he thought, thinking about every move, every option, and every outcome with a smug look plastered onto his now smirking face.

* * *

"I do not think aloud. I think in my mind. I will uncover any hidden plot, put a stop to it, and intervene with my own schemes, if one may call it that. I will-"

"You will shut the hell up so that I can work." Namie growled angrily at Izaya from across the room. Not only had the secretary been working for hours on end, but listening to the information broker's incessant ramblings as well. The raven-haired man looked up at her from his desk.

"What do you mean?" He snapped, confusedly. She sighed impatiently.

"You've been talking to yourself for the past five hours," she hissed. "It's a pain enough to look at your face everyday, but hearing your voice at the same time? Forget it." Eyes squinted in annoyance, she returned to her work quietly, silently enjoying the loathing and puzzled look that Izaya had given to the surface of his desk. After a long moment of utter silence, Izaya spoke.

"Take the rest of the day off." He grumbled. It was at least three hours from her usual quitting time, but Namie wasn't complaining. She gathered her pens and items into a case and ran off, enjoying her unusual privilege before her bipolar and insane employer had taken back what he'd said.

"Now, what to do about-" Izaya cut himself off, realizing that he _had_ been speaking aloud for the past while. Growling, he stood and looked about the city of Shinjuku through his windows. He did, in fact, love his little humans. Sadly though, no matter how easily he could manipulate them and bend them to his will, he was still searching his mind for a solution for his current... problem.

"Shizu-chan..." He muttered in a bitter-sweet tone of voice. He thought for a moment.

"Perhaps if I cannot win this war my way," He whispered, walking over to his comforting gameboard and hovering a thin hand over the various kinds of pieces. Comparing his thoughtful, strategic tactics to that off the beast in which he seemingly loathed, he smirked.

"Maybe I can win it his way..."

On pure instinct, he poured a silver bottle containing a rancid, thick liquid over the board and followed with a lit match. Happily watching the board erupt violently in flames, he laughed crazily, not stopping to think or plan what could possibly happen next, with a twisted scowl of anger on his face.

* * *

_Meet me at the large fountain in Ikebukuro in twenty minutes._

The text still bothered him, not knowing why, but shrugging it off, Izaya nonchalantly leaned over the edge of the fountain in Ikebukuro and relaxed. Letting his guard down in a place like this was dangerous, that he knew, but running on instinct was new to him, and he'd decided to let it slide. Not bothering to check if he had his trusty switchblade at hand, he shoved his hands in his pockets and sighed.

"I was beginning to wonder if you'd show up, flea." A voice behind him muttered. Izaya turned to face the taller man who'd taken a seat next to him near the fountain.

"Oi, Shizu-chan. So it was you?" He responded cockily. "Miss me already, ne?"

Shizuo replied with a small laugh of mock and grinned.

"Obviously, you missed me enough to come and meet me, so I wouldn't be the one looking so smug." He said calmly. "Besides, I'm surprised you hadn't taken off running yet, flea. Something bothering you so much as to stay here with me?"

Knowing that he shouldn't be showing any emotion, but ignoring that fact, the brunet frowned and looked back at the taller man. He then said something that he never thought he'd say in response to that query.

"Didn't feel like it, I guess." Running an indolent hair through his jet-black locks, Izaya blew a strand of hair our of his face. "The real question is, why aren't you chasing me and screaming yet, Shizu-chan?"

Shizuo thought for a moment, weighing the consequences of jack-slapping the smaller man right then.

"I thought about it, but that is a good question. If I did that, you'd never listen to me, would you, Izaya?" Using his right index finger to push up his purple shades, Shizuo looked inquisitively at his acquaintance judgmentally. "If I attacked you now, you wouldn't be willing to talk to me later, thinking at it would only be another trap laid our for you to fall into."

Begrudgingly allowing his emotions to get the better of him, Izaya gritted his teeth and shot up. Knowing that his pent up emotions and thoughts would inevitably reveal too much about his feelings, he blurted everything out anyways.

"You know what, Shizuo, it wouldn't matter in the end anyways, would it!?" He yelled. "You can say what you want to me, but I know that you'll just change your mind later just because you can! You can say that you love me, and you can say that you hate me, but it will all just sound the same because I know that you may not even mean it!"

Screaming at this point, the tears began to fall, and both couldn't help but silently remember the dream they'd both secretly had only a night ago.

"I hate you, and you hate me, and that's all there is to it, isn't there!? You'll just take back what you say and insult me instead, regardless of how I feel! But you know what? It hurts. It really hurts! It's like you want to break, again and again and again until I shatter completely, don't you!? The bruises, the insults, the scars, all of those flaws that I give to you, they are so that you _remember me_. I don't want you to forget, and just make me another memory in those eyes of yours... I love you, but I know that it doesn't matter anyways because-!"

In a single motion, Shizuo shot up and pressed his lips against those of Izaya's. Nobody was there to judge them at this ungodly hour, so why would they have to worry? The kiss beginning as chaste and sweet turned heated in a heartbeat, and seconds passed like hours. Breaking reluctantly after a while, the two gasped for breath, foreheads pressed together and arms tightly bound around one another like ribbons, they smiled.

"Shut up, flea." Shizuo grinning, getting a flushed face and a genuine smile in reply. "I never thought that after all of the calling a did for you that you would listen. I thought that whenever you cried, whenever you fell apart, that I was always the reason after all. You've been getting the business end of the most complicated relationship ever to exist. I should've known that you'd break soon enough, and asking you things like this now when you were down defenseless, when your walls were down so low... I love you."

Izaya giggled quietly.

"Be quiet already; I know." He said. "And that's why I love you, too, my monster..." He trailed off, kissing his enemy and his lover at the same time with a smirk.

* * *

**Alright, so I did this over a period of time and my taste in music was inconsistent over that period. Because of this, there are hints of Look After You by the Fray, Shattered by O.A.R., and a little bit of Call Your Name by Daughtry in there. They're really small, but they're still there sort of, if you squint really hard. And they're not placed in very well like I would usually incorporate them in, but this was kind of half-assed anyways... *single tear*  
**

**I'm sorry, please don't hit me...**

**Anyways, I wasn't planning on making this any longer than a few chapters, but I'll treat you bros to an epilogue just to tie up some loose ends or what not. I guess.**

**-XxReddShadowxX**


	4. Epilogue

**Okay, so this is the end of it, I guess. I thought I was going to make it longer, originally, but I didn't feel like it since I already posted a pretty okay ending. I'll add an epilogue for the sheer absence of anything else to add, and I guess just go on to write more stories and stuff like that :I**

* * *

_Almost ten years..._

It had been about ten years, most likely more so than that, when Shizuo Heiwajima laid amber eyes on Izaya Orihara on the high-school football field for the first time in his life. It had been about that same time when he fell in love, albeit reluctantly, with the man as well.

_Four years..._

It had been exactly four years since that moment at the fountain in Ikebukuro, and neither of the two- Shizuo Heiwajima or Izaya _Heiwajima_ at this point in time- had forgotten a single moment of it.

_Two and a half months..._

It had been two and a half months since the two joined each other in eternal matrimony after their many long years of love that had never, not even once, been unrequited. It was almost unbelievable how two people could remain in just as much love as they had with their first kiss up until now.

"Never leave me, Shizu-chan." Izaya would always say. "Don't worry, flea, I won't." The other would always reply with a smile and a kiss on the cheek.

This would happen often, as the two idly stared into each others eyes, Izaya in Shizuo's lap as they'd relax on a couch in their shared apartment. It was the same, but each knew that they would never get bored of it. Even though it was the same, it was always different, in a way. Neither knew what to expect of each other. The relationship was mutual, an endless cycle of undying love for one another. That's how they both liked it, too.

The wedding had been held in secret, and the outsider's view of the two never changed. They still fought, they still wounded each other, they still possessed a burning hatred for the other, but when they knew they were alone, it was only them. It wasn't venting, not in the least sort. They did indeed harbor various feelings for each other, and it turned out that hatred was just one of many. Nevertheless, it was the one that stuck out to the human eye the most, and there was nothing wrong with that. It was them, taking their natural part in the endless dance over and around the line between hate and love, meant for only two, and that was the way they liked it.

Constantly, the two would smile at the beautiful wedding bands they'd each received two and a half months ago. If you asked them now what their favorite color was, it they were to truly answer, their responses would sound something like this...

_"The color of my ring is red. Red is my favorite color, because it's the color of Izaya's eyes. Red is the color that I can look at and think about him, and him alone. I love him. That is something that will never change, and I know that the color of the ring will never change, either. We will be together forever, and I will always need part of the flea I love with me every second of my life. Without him, life isn't so great, is it? With him though..."_

_"The color of my ring is amber. Amber is my favorite color, because it is the color of Shizu-chan's eyes. Amber is the color that I can look at and think about him, and him alone. I love him. That is something that will never change, and I know that the color of the ring will never change either. We will be together forever, and I will always need part of the monster I love with me every second of my life. Without him, life isn't so great, is it? With him though..."_

Life isn't so bad.

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**The End! **

**So, my second computer was too busy freaking rebooting, so my source of music was dead over this whole month. So much for expressing my love of music, huh? It's alright, now that you know, maybe it'll show more in some other stories?**

**Ya never know.**

**Reviews are always much appreciated, and even if you don't, that's cool. You read it, didn't you?  
**

**You can stop reading here if you're not interested in what I have to say, but I'd like to say something about this story-related themes anyways, so thank you.  
**

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_**I may be heterosexual, but I feel the need to say this.**_

_**You can be homosexual, and you can be heterosexual, and you can be bisexual. Anybody who's different has every right to be who they are. Anyone who thinks differently, who thinks that their opinion should be followed regardless of any other person's feelings, can just walk away and shut up. Be whoever you want, and know that nobody is going to stop you because there is always at least one person out there, probably millions at that, who love you for who you are, not what anyone else wants you to be.  
**_

_**Be proud, and know that there are people out there who care about you, and know that you should care about you** **too.**_

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**-XxReddShadowxX**


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